


Walk in the Light

by MathiasHyde



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2253462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathiasHyde/pseuds/MathiasHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Yagyuu passes away unexpectedly, Niou has to learn to live without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk in the Light

**Author's Note:**

> Written originally in Jan/Feb 2012. This work is Incomplete.

"I didn't like training today."

"That's your fault for antagonising Sanada."

Niou sighed and shifted the pillow at his back to a better position, leaning against the wall again and looking at the window. Yagyuu was never very sympathetic over the phone to him; the fact that it was nearly 2AM was possibly a factor in this, but best friends should be available at all hours.

"My legs still hurt from all the laps. Make it all better, Yagyuu," Niou complained, holding the phone in between his ear and shoulder while he pulled up his pajama pants awkwardly.

"No."

There was silence for a few moments and Niou could hear Yagyuu's breathing through the phone --- had the other boy gone to sleep accidentally?

Niou looked around his room for another topic of conversation. It was late and they had tennis practice in the morning, but he was still wide awake. And as the best friend, Yagyuu was the sacrificial lamb to keep Niou amused until he went to sleep.

"Did you manage to finish the English assignment?" he asked finally. His was still partly unfinished. Something to do tomorrow during lunch time, most likely with Yagyuu sitting next to him for help.

"Mmmm..."

"Are you falling asleep on me?"

"Mmhmm."

Niou exhaled noisily. "Hey Yagyuu?"

"Yes, Niou?" Yagyuu definitely sounded tired now. His words were less crisp that normal and he just sounded resigned to his fate of having to talk.

"I can see your face on the moon."

"I'm sure."

Niou just managed to muffle a laugh and he had to struggle to calm himself down before he could speak again. "You're _mooning_ me."

There was a very long pause and he could just imagine Yagyuu silently groaning to himself, possibly closing his eyes.

"I'm going to bed now." Yagyuu seemed to have taken the route of just ignoring what Niou had said. Probably the safest option.

Niou laughed quietly. "Alright then, old man."

"Goodnight."

And just as Niou opened his mouth to reply back, he heard the click and the tone to signal Yagyuu had hung up. Typical nighttime Yagyuu.

Niou sighed and stared at his phone. He was tempted to call someone else, but he doubted they'd be as understanding of the late night call as Yagyuu. He thought Yukimura might indulge him for a little while, but he'd probably have to pay for it tomorrow at training and it really wasn't worth it.

He tossed the pillows down to the head of the bed and flopped down, pulling the blankets up. Maybe he'd entertain himself by messaging Yagyuu. The other boy had probably turned his phone off or on silent at this point, it wasn't like it would wake him up. What a lovely idea.

\---

"Can I assume that you went to sleep when the messages stopped?" Yagyuu asked the next day in the change rooms.

"Yeah, probably." Niou pulled on his shirt, carefully fixing up his hair once it was on.

Yagyuu closed the distance between them and grabbed Niou's chin, making him look up in surprise and drop his hands. The rest of the club members ignored them, well used to their morning interactions.

Niou twitched and closed his eyes as Yagyuu's thumb ran underneath his right one, pulling away very quickly. "Stop that."

"If you let your hair grow out a bit, you'll look even more like a panda." Yagyuu seemed unperturbed and turned back to continue getting changed.

"My hair is _natural_ , as you well know."

"My apologies, I've forgotten what your pubic hair looks like. Would you care to show me again?" 

There was a very perceptible pause in the clubroom --- obviously people weren't ignoring them as much as Niou thought they were --- and he tensed. Yagyuu looked as calm as ever and he raised his eyebrows at Niou.

"I hope you get hit by a tennis ball today." Niou bristled and picked up his racquet, stomping noisily out the clubroom towards the courts.

It was much easier this year with them being second years and Kirihara joining them. It had been hard last year when they'd first come in, Yukimura having pestered them all through break to join the club again. From what he'd heard from Yagyuu after, _he'd_ actually been the hardest person to convince.

While he thought that was highly unlikely, perhaps no one else on their old team had actually gotten to the point of causing Yukimura to visit them during the break just to convince them.

He skipped over to Sanada who was supervising the putting up of the nets and prodded him in the back.

"Brings back memories, doesn't it?"

Sanada glanced at him and turned away to continue staring at the first years.

Niou frowned at him and gave him another poke in the back. "I'm getting all reminiscent over here, you could at least indulge me as the dutiful vice-captain."

"Go reminisce with Renji," Sanada said, elbowing Niou in the side to get him away. "I'm busy."

That was a shame, he'd been hoping to retell the always exciting story about how Sanada had challenged a third year senior to a match on their first training session of high school and thoroughly thrashed him for mocking Yukimura about losing to a first year. While Sanada denied it every time, Niou was pretty sure whenever the topic came up, Sanada smiled just a little bit.

Niou pulled a face at Sanada and looked around for Yanagi, his smile dropping as he saw him standing next to Yagyuu. Dammit.

"Hey Data-man!" Niou shouted and waved, hurrying over and generally being a pest.

"We were just discussing your conversation from before," Yanagi said.

Niou stared at Yagyuu for a long moment. "Yeah?"

"Is your pubic hair really white?" If it had been anyone else, Niou might've had a very different reaction, but Yanagi came across as more intellectually interested and was probably adding everything to his collection of data. And of course, in exchange for a few tasty tidbits about Sanada, Niou was more that willing to give up some useless information about himself.

"Of course it is. What, you want a look, you old pervert?"

Niou's hands were already at his waistband and he made a very large show of pushing it down just a few teasing centimetres before he heard a, "Niou, fifty laps!" from behind him and he sighed.

"Sorry Data-man, maybe later."

He poked his tongue out at Yagyuu and was just a little satisfied by the amused look he got in return before he turned around and with a very unhappy grumble, started on his laps.

He was going to be sore this afternoon.

\---

Niou was half awake through his morning classes and skipped maths before lunch to go up to the roof and sleep.

He'd lied to the teacher and said he was heading to the toilet and felt absolutely no guilt as he hunted for the best spot on the roof. Niou pulled off his jacket and folded it up to use as a pillow, carefully lying down in a half-shaded spot. Thankfully Yagyuu wasn't in his class, since he could hear the "this is why you should go to bed at a decent hour, Niou" already and he sighed.

In his logic, if Yagyuu had problems with him staying up so late, he wouldn't go along with the late night phone calls.

Niou rolled onto his side and awkwardly tucked his arm underneath him. It wasn't the most comfortable of positions, but the sun was warm and he could feel his eyes shutting already.

The next thing he knew was someone poking him in the side, probably with this foot. He groaned and opened his eyes, immediately shutting them from the light and covering his eyes with an arm.

"Go away," he said, frowning at whoever it was and really hoping it wasn't a teacher.

"Niou, get up." Ah, it was Yagyuu. He'd know that voice anywhere. "It's lunchtime."

"Make everyone come up here." He didn't want to get up and go back to his classroom and then go sit wherever everyone else was.

He heard the door to the roof open and he frowned some more.

"They're already here. Now get up." Yagyuu seemed to sit down next to him and soon enough Niou heard the voices of the rest of their _group_ come closer.

"Hey dumbass, you need to see Asai-sensei after school," Marui said, putting something that felt suspiciously like Niou's lunchbox on his stomach and walking off.

Niou grunted and moved the thing on his stomach to the ground before he sat up. He yawned and stretched his arms up, sighing as he heard his back crack. Very nice.

"Yeah, fine." He paused for a moment and glanced over at Yukimura, sitting a few paces away. "Yukimura, I'm going to be late to practice." Niou said, even though the other boy had probably heard Marui's comment.

"Make sure you run from the classroom to the courts to warm up, then," Yukimura said before turning away to talk to Sanada. Yukimura always had been a bit more lenient with him, Niou liked to claim it was his sparkling personality.

The conversation in their group of regulars was easy and predictable. Sanada and Yukimura were sitting together, discussing things to do with the tennis club. Yanagi moved back and forth between their conversation and looking after Kirihara, who was pulling a fit over something or other. Jackal was being his caretaker, Marui was going from person to person to see what they had for lunch and Yagyuu was sitting reading a book.

Niou abandoned his lunch halfway through and slumped sideways into Yagyuu's lap, resting his head on his thighs and wiggled around to get into a more comfortable position. He laughed and reached up to grab the book from Yagyuu's hands.

It was some silly crime novel, well worn at the spine. Niou spared it half a glance before opening it up to a random page and covering his face with it, ignoring Yagyuu's tensing up underneath him.

"You two look so _gay_ like that, you know," Marui said.

Niou thought he heard a very quiet laugh from Yagyuu but he didn't pay it much heed, instead choosing to sit up very abruptly and throw the paperback novel at Marui.

"Shut up, fatty."

The book missed Marui and hit Sanada instead, causing the other boy to stop mid-sentence to turn around and look straight at him.

"Niou!"

Niou put on his best innocent face and pointed at Yagyuu. "It was Yagyuu," he said, turning to look at an impassive Yagyuu with a disapproving look and a shake of his head before looking at Sanada again. "It's Agatha Christie, I don't read that shit."

Maybe three years ago he could've gotten away with that excuse, but unfortunately looking innocent wasn't good enough anymore.

"Fifty laps at training," Sanada said, turning back to his conversation with Yukimura.

Niou pulled a face at Sanada and sighed, flopping back down into Yagyuu's lap. He glanced up at him and paused at the smile he was getting. He groaned and rolled onto his side, facing Yagyuu's stomach and covered his exposed ear with one hand.

"Don't tell me that was my own fault."

"I wasn't going to."

He could hear the sound of pages turning meaning Yagyuu had somehow gotten his book back. That, or he'd had another one stashed away; Niou wouldn't put it past him.

"What're the chances you'd switch and run the laps for me?" Especially since Yagyuu didn't tend to start wilting around 40 laps and therefore didn't run the risk of getting more added for punishment.

"Close to none."

"Come oonnn, my legs still hurt from yesterday."

"No."

Niou fell silent and Yagyuu went back to reading his book. He was almost waiting for another rude comment from Marui, but maybe he felt sorry for the 50 laps already. Doubtful.

He huffed and sighed and groaned and started to play with the buttons on Yagyuu's shirt, undoing them very slowly. He was actually surprised that he wasn't told to stop and had undone three before the bell rang. There had been the temptation to undo more, but that would've been too obvious.

Niou got up quickly and packed away his lunch box --- with about half of what had been left mysteriously missing --- dusting his bum off.

"Actually go to class for the rest of the day," Yagyuu said, starting to head towards the door. Niou trotted after him and slid an arm through his, beaming.

"I will I will."

"And don't go to sleep."

Niou rolled his eyes and pulled himself free. The others were at the bottom of the second flight of stairs already.

"Yes sir, Mr. Student Council member." Niou gave him a mock salute before pausing and grinning. "And you should probably fix up your shirt. I'm pretty sure baring your stomach isn't part of the school rules."

He laughed as Yagyuu looked down and made a funny spluttering noise. Niou gave him a wave and swung himself over the stair railings to drop down onto the next flight of stairs and started running.

\---

The next day, Niou skipped afternoon class, regardless of Yagyuu's daily reminders to stop skipping. He moved as far away from the roof door as possible, sitting in a corner and staring out at the oval.

There was a class there doing hurdles; he thought he could see a few tennis club seniors in the front group.

His legs were still hurting from yesterday training but a lack of punishment laps this morning and some light tennis playing had helped. He had a feeling Yukimura had taken pity on his stiff legged hopping walk and inability to get changed without Yagyuu's help and had told Sanada to lay off him for one day.

Niou heard the door to the roof open and footsteps approaching his side of the roof. He tensed and kept determinedly looking at the oval, snickering quietly to himself as one person tripped over a hurdle and landed face down on the track.

"I thought I told you to go to class."

And that was unmistakeably Yagyuu. Niou tilted his head back and looked at him, poking out his tongue.

"Class was boring and the sun was calling my name," Niou said.

Yagyuu nudged his head with a knee. "Sit up straight. That's bad for your neck."

Niou turned around and leaned against the fence, looking up at Yagyuu. "So why're you here? Skipping class too?"

"It's free study period for me." Yagyuu paused. "And I'm here to check if any rebellious students are cutting class."

Niou laughed and pointedly looked around the roof. "I can't see any." He smiled. "I'll be sure to tell them off if any appear though."

Yagyuu just gave him an unamused look and, much to Niou's surprise, sat down next to him on the floor.

There was a pause before Niou draped himself over Yagyuu's lap as per usual, rolling onto his back and using an arm to shield his eyes from the sun.

"Get off me, Niou."

Niou snorted. "You know if you sit down next to me, that's open invitation to sacrifice your lap."

"I'm not sitting next to you, there was space between us."

"Fruits and vegetables, both are good for you."

Yagyuu was silent and Niou peeked up at him only to find him looking very confused. Niou smothered a laugh. "Don't get an aneurysm from over thinking it."

"...That makes no sense." Yagyuu still looked really baffled and Niou reached up to poke him on the cheek.

"To you maybe. To me it makes perfect sense."

He could hear some sort of yelling over from the general direction of the tennis courts and he resisted the urge to get up and check. Probably the PE class again, or another one. Niou closed his eyes to try and concentrate on picking sounds apart, blocking out Yagyuu's breathing and the sounds of him shifting around slightly.

"I have to cancel our plans this weekend," Yagyuu said suddenly, cutting out Niou's thoughts and he opened his eyes with a start.

"What?"

"I can still do dinner tonight, but I'm busy otherwise."

It probably would've been more effective if he'd sat up and glared at Yagyuu, but he would just have to suffice with doing it from his lap.

"Are you standing me up!?"

"I'm telling you a day beforehand and I wasn't aware it was a _date_."

Niou huffed and pulled a face. "Doubles is a commitment, you know."

Yagyuu just gave him a look in return and his legs seemed to be moving more than normal. Niou backtracked very quickly.

"What're you doing instead, then? Got a date with a girl?" He just managed to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying something like 'are you cheating on me'. Yagyuu didn't seem to appreciate his relationship jokes, unfortunately.

"I'm helping my father out at the hospital," Yagyuu said. His legs had stopped moving and he was running his fingers through Niou's hair and that was a very nice way to settle him down.

"You skipping training, then?"

"I told Yukimura this morning while you were attempting to pull down your trousers without moving your legs."

"Ah." Niou sighed. "I'll be stuck on solo training all weekend now, you know."

"My apologies. I'll bring you a kidney shaped dish to make up for it."

"I'll only accept it if it's blue."

Yagyuu laughed and poked him on the cheek, mimicking his previous action. "If it pleases you, Niou. Now get up, I have to get back to class."

Niou reluctantly sat up, ruffling up his hair and yawning very obviously. He twisted around to see Yagyuu standing up and dusting off his uniform.

"You're not telling me to go back to class?' He looked up at him and that was actually pretty surprising.

"You'll ignore me either way," Yagyuu said, heading towards the roof door again. "Don't sleep through afternoon training."

Niou raised his hand in a wave and laid back down as soon as Yagyuu was out of sight and he heard the door shut.

\---

It was oddly empty that weekend without his plans for seeing Yagyuu. He saw the rest of the team at training, but they'd been planning on going to a movie and playing terrible video games together afterwards.

Given the sudden disconcerting openness of his weekend, Niou found himself at a loss of what to do and, most horrifyingly --- though he planned on telling Yagyuu on Monday with the smuggest of airs --- he ended up doing his homework.

He'd been told during Friday night dinner that he was not, under any circumstances allowed to call Yagyuu late at night over this weekend because supposedly he needed his sleep.

Niou amused himself at 2AM on Sunday instead calling methodically through his contacts and seeing how long each of them lasted. Sanada hung up immediately, Jackal put up with him for a few minutes with slurred talk, Marui didn't even answer and Yukimura told him very firmly to go to bed or to ring Sanada before he hung up himself.

He satisfied himself by sending Yagyuu a message. He had to wait ten minutes before he got a reply back and was halfway through writing a second message.

_Read the copy of Death On The Nile you stole off me if you can't sleep._

Niou laughed, glancing at the battered looking book on his desk. He still hadn't read it, he'd just slipped it into his bag one day when over at Yagyuu's house.

_It's a borrowing system. With no due back dates._

He didn't have to wait long for a reply and Yagyuu was clearly awake now. It was tempting to ring him maybe.

_Don't even think about ringing me. Go to bed._

Touché.

\---

He got dragged out shopping with his sister on the Sunday, standing awkwardly next to her in clothing shops and being made to carry the bags. At least it was obvious they were siblings and not dating or anything. Because that would be awkward if people thought that.

After dinner he went upstairs and reached straight for his phone, dialling Yagyuu's number.

Niou whistled along with the theme of the drama series he could hear his sister watching in the next room as he listened to the phone ringing.

There was a click and Niou opened his mouth to speak and then found himself listening to Yagyuu's voicemail message.

"It's the end of the weekend already. I'm allowed to ring you, right?"

He waited for a few more moments, expecting Yagyuu to suddenly pick up and start talking to him, but it remained silent until he heard the lady's voice telling him the message had been recorded.

Niou tried again later that night and got the same thing. He frowned and sent a series of very short messages instead, mostly consisting of increasingly sad and over the top emoticons. Yagyuu had probably put his phone on silent for the hospital and forgotten about it or something.

"I know I know, you're telling me to go away and sleep or read one of your stupid books," Niou said to the phone screen, frowning.

Even so, it was hard getting to sleep that night and it didn't help that the rest of the team seemed to have turned off their phones as well.

\---

Niou woke up late Monday morning, a result of having forgotten to set an alarm the previous night and his mother waking him up when she realised he hadn't appeared for breakfast.

She drove him to school for once while he ate toast in the passenger seat, trying to comb his hair at the same time and failing miserably.

"Thank you thank you thank you," Niou said as they reached the gates of Rikkai High School, glancing at his watch. He was only a few minutes late to practice.

He slung his bags on his shoulder and ran through the gates towards the tennis courts. Niou ran past the group of regulars standing together talking, shouting over his shoulder. "I know I'm late, I'll run laps later!" cutting across Sanada who seemed to have started to open his mouth.

Niou was swift like the wind in getting dressed, and it was rather thankful that he lacked any sense of modesty to begin with so he was perfectly fine with just pulling off his clothes regardless of there being people in the clubroom or not. He tightened the laces on his shoes, stuck his bag in his locker and ran out again.

All the work of a moment.

He slowed down to a skipping walk as he approached the group, frowning and feeling rather self-conscious as everyone stared at him. Was it that obvious he'd recently woken up or something?

Niou stopped fully as he looked around the group. Blue hair and green headband, black hair and black hat, brown mushroom hair, red hair and green bubblegum, sparkly shaved head, black seaweed hair...

"… Where's Yagyuu? He late too?"

And speaking of that, why wasn't everyone warming up for training? Looking even closer, Yukimura looked like he'd been up all night, Kirihara's eyes were bloodshot, Sanada looked like he had the stick up his ass jammed further than usual, Marui looked sad; a feeling of unsettling unease started bubbling in his stomach.

"Niou, he... Yagyuu's dead," Yukimura said, the oddly human expression looking out of place with his tennis uniform on.

Niou stared some more and then laughed. "Very funny joke, Yukimura." He shook his head and turned around, marching back towards the club house. It was long past April Fool's and it wasn't near either of their birthdays, it was ridiculous for Yagyuu to be pulling some sort of silly joke.

Unless it was some large harebrained scheme to ask for forgiveness for missing his calls last night or something. He could see sort of, Yagyuu doing something like that.

Niou first did a circle around the clubhouse, peering behind bushes, trying to ignore the sound of six sets of footsteps following behind him.

Were they going to start singing when he got close to Yagyuu's hiding place, maybe?

He finally went into the clubhouse and into the shower area, checking all the cubicles carefully. Nothing.

Yukimura's words played in his head again _Yagyuu's dead_ and Niou shook his head, breathing in deeply. Fucking ridiculous.

He straightened up and went into the main room, stopping in front of everyone. "Alright, you've got me. Where's he hiding?"

It was Marui who spoke this time, stepping forward to touch his shoulder and in closer range, Niou could see the redness of his eyes and the faint shadows underneath them.

"Yukimura told the truth, 'Haru." Marui's hand tightened on his shoulder and Niou stared blankly at him. "He got into... into a car accident yesterday with his mother and... his uncle called..."

"He died in the hospital last night at approximately half-past nine." That was Yanagi talking in his usual calm tone but Niou barely heard him.

There was just blunt refusal to understand and a churning of his stomach. And then breathing was suddenly getting harder and his chest tightened and he took in a shaky breath, pressing a hand to his mouth. His nose was burning and his eyes were stinging and he took in another tight breath and he felt something wet drip down his cheek and pool in his hand.

"Fuck."

He pushed away Marui's hand and looked at the ceiling and then the opposite wall; anything to not see what was probably sympathetic looks from the rest of the team.

"Fuck."

His legs were feeling weak and he wanted to sit down, but he wanted to get out of here and he bent over double and fought an urge to throw up, gagging and making desperate noises that pulled at his chest and he struggled to keep breathing.

"Niou, come on, sit down over here."

There was a hand on his elbow and Niou threw up both his arms, pushing them away. "Don't touch me!"

He could hear footsteps going out the clubhouse and the door opening and shutting but he didn't care enough to look up to see who'd left. There was a long silence that made Niou struggle to control his shuddering breathing and the small spasming noises in the back of his throat.

"… Why did no one tell me?"

That was greeted with silence and Niou straightened up, glaring through his hair and he let his hands drop. "Why did _everyone else_ get told but _me_?" he said, raising his voice and seeing the tears in other people's eyes just served to make him angrier.

He didn't need to hear their answer, he knew perfectly well what it was. No one wanted to be the one to break the news and deal with Niou's reaction alone.

"You're all selfish assholes." He pushed through the group towards his locker, ignoring them as he pulled out his bags and kicked the door shut.

Niou avoided everyone's eyes as he left the clubhouse, slammed the door behind him and stomping away. He was stopped partway by Sanada who frowned at his bags and then at him.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going home to cry. Since I wasn't able to do it last night like everyone else apparently was!" He swung his school bag at Sanada and he bared his teeth in some feral imitation of a grin as it hit him in the side.

Niou shoved past him and kept walking, his footsteps faltering for a moment as Sanada spoke again. "Get back here. You still have training."

You _stupid fuck_. "I quit your fucking tennis club. You happy now!?" Niou didn't wait for an answer and started running towards the front gates and to home.

\---

His chest was burning by the time he got home and he nearly threw up in the garden as he took in a deep breath. He couldn't tell if it was from the running or the emotions and his hands were shaking as he unlocked the door and went into the house.

Niou closed the door and toed off his shoes, only just belatedly realising he was still in his tennis uniform.

His mother appeared from the kitchen and paused at the sight of him, moving forward to take his school bag. "Masaharu, what's wrong?"

Niou bit his lip and shook his head and fuck, he could already feel his breathing shaking again and he shook his head harder as though it would make everything go away. He clenched his hands into fists as his tennis bag was also taken away and he choked on a sob.

"Do you want a drink?"

The stupid fucking _unwanted_ tears started welling in his eyes again as he felt his mother's hand run through his hair and Niou stared at her blurry slippers before he shut his eyes and he swallowed a lump in his throat.

"Yagyuu..." Niou struggled to talk and he twitched, swallowing again and he pushed the hand away from his hair before heading towards his room. "I'm staying home." he didn't like the way his voice shook even as he tried to steady it with whatever scraps of self control he had left, but he didn't really care.

He shut his bedroom door behind him and slid down it, curling into a ball on the floor. Niou couldn't control the ragged noises and shaky breathing and he could feel his knees getting wet but he just pressed his face harder against them, digging his fingers into his hair and pulling at it, scraping his nails hard against his scalp.

"You stupid fuck," he said, clenching his eyes shut and pressing his forehead against his knees. "You stupid, selfish _fuck_ of a friend." Niou's eyes stung as he opened them for a moment.

There was a knock at his door and Niou ignored it.

"Masaharu?" It was his sister, Miyabi.

"Go away." Niou didn't care whether or not she heard him.

"Masaharu, are you okay?"

"Go away!" He slammed his hand against his door as hard as he could, almost relishing in the shock up his arm and the stinging of his palm.

He heard footsteps down the hallway and he just covered his ears with his palms and curled back up into a ball.

\---

Sometime during the day, he moved to his bed, lying down and covering himself with his blanket. He stared at his desk, his bookshelf, the stupid copy of Yagyuu's stupid book... his chest ached and his eyes were burning.

There was a knock at the door and Niou growled at them to go away again, rolling over to face the wall away from the door.

The light footsteps told him it was his mother and he just curled up into a ball under the blankets, tempted to cover his face with his pillow.

"Your friend Yukimura called," his mother said, sitting down on the side of his bed and started to run a hand through his hair.

Niou twitched and slapped it away. "Don't touch my hair."

His mother sighed and started to rub his back instead. "He told me what happened. Your friends are worried about you."

"I don't care," Niou said, closing his eyes and damnit, he could feel his eyes starting to sting again. "I don't care about them." He only cared about Yagyuu Yagyuu Yagyuu.

"I've made sandwiches for lunch. You can watch the television while you eat them."

Niou shook his head on the pillow and moved his hand up to wipe his eyes. "I'm not hungry." Eating was the last thing on his mind.

They stayed in silence for a long while and he found tears annoyingly trickling down onto the pillow no matter how hard he tried to swallow them and it was made worse by the hand still rubbing circles on his back.

Eventually his mother got up and Niou missed the warmth at his back and he bit his lip hard to stop himself from saying anything.

"Here's your phone." She leaned over him and put it in his hand. "I'll leave your things near your desk."

He shut his eyes and dug his teeth in more as he heard her moving around his room. Niou didn't move and barely dared to breathe until she'd left and he heard the door shut behind her.

He opened up his phone and after wiping his eyes and squinting, Niou saw a large number of missed calls and messages. Niou's mouth twitched and he shut his phone, clenching his hand around it tightly. He shoved it underneath the covers, somewhere around his hip and closed his eyes.

\---

Niou somehow fell into a half-sleep and there was Yagyuu at the door, talking and laughing with his sister and Niou struggled to wake up because he was up in his room and he had to go downstairs to see him to tell him how the team had tricked him.

He jerked into wakefulness and his heart leapt as he heard his mother downstairs talking. Niou scrambled out of bed and nearly tripped on the covers. He ran down the stairs and slipped in his socks on the wooden floors into the living room.

There was his sister and mother... … Niou looked around the room carefully and the elation died, his heart plummeting down into his stomach.

"Masaharu?" his mother said, her conversation with his sister completely forgotten.

Niou let out a ragged breath. "Fuckit." He turned around and ran back upstairs, slamming his door behind him and going straight back under the covers of his bed, pressing his face into the pillow and biting down on it to stop himself from crying again.

\---

He vaguely heard his brother come home, followed by his father sometime later. Neither of them disturbed him and he had a feeling his mother had said something. His phone had rung a few times as well, but he'd ignored it. The home phone had rung as well, and he suspected it was answered but he was never called down to talk.

He could smell dinner cooking, some sort of spicy chicken thing by the smell of it and he very firmly ignored the empty feeling in his stomach, clutching around his waist and curling into a tighter ball to make it go away.

His door opened but Niou didn't bother turning around to look who it was, staring at a mark on the wall instead.

"I'm making curry for dinner if you want to eat." His mother again.

"I'm fine." Niou's voice cracked halfway through and he frowned at the wall.

"Do you want me to bring some up for you to eat in here?"

Niou was silent for a long time and his stomach rumbled a bit. "Not too much sauce," he mumbled.

His mother moved away and Niou sighed. The ache in his chest had faded to just a dull feeling and each breath rattled uncomfortably.

His heart was thumping unnaturally loud in his chest, or maybe that was the silence pressing around him that didn't seemed affected by the sounds of the TV downstairs or his brother's high pitched voice talking too loudly. It made Niou want to scream or _something_ just to make it go away and he picked up a pillow and threw it somewhere behind him, hearing it crash against something and more things falling to the ground.

Niou sat up to look what had happened just as his mother walked in again with a plate of food. She very pointedly ignored the mess around his desk and cleared some space there for his plate. "Don't eat it on your bed." she said with too forced of a smile before she left.

He sighed and oozed out of bed, making his way over to his desk. Niou kicked aside his pillow, a book and some random figurine before sitting in his desk chair.

The silence was even more oppressive at his desk and he found himself purposely hitting his fork on his plate and kicking his feet against his desk just to make some sort of noise.

He made an angry, frustrated noise and suddenly stood up, his chair scraping back and he kicked his desk, stomping over to his bed to fish out his phone. He plugged it into speakers and started playing music.

There was the sound of saxophone playing, drowning out the sounds of his family downstairs and it made it slightly easier to return to his meal. Even so, he still found himself pushing his food around the plate more than actually eating it. The sauce congealed and the rice became gluggy and Niou sighed and pushed it away from him.

Going to lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling for the rest of the night was much more preferable.

\---

His mother poked her head into his room late in the night and early the next morning while still in her pajamas, most likely to see if he was sleeping.

Niou just stared at her from his bed, his phone still playing jazz music. He'd moved once from his bed, to get a drink from the bathroom and go to the toilet.

She reappeared later in the morning, now changed and looking a bit more awake and she moved into his room, sitting down on the side of his bed.

"Did you sleep last night?"

Niou just averted his eyes from hers, which probably gave her all the answers she needed. He realised very belatedly that he was still in his tennis uniform from yesterday morning and everything started replaying in his head and Niou clenched his fingers in the blankets, holding his breath and biting his lip.

His mother rubbed his shoulder and Niou shrugged her off, pulling his knees up and pressed his face into them again.

His shoulders shook and he made a low, pained noise, some hot tearing emotion clawing it's way up his chest. The hand had moved to rubbing his back instead and his mother was murmuring some senseless words he barely heard over the deafening pressure in his ears.

"I'm going to ring the school so you can stay home today, okay?" she said eventually. "And I'll ring Yukimura to let him know as well."

"I quit," he mumbled, swallowing thickly. "I quit, you don't have to."

And besides, even if he hadn't, he'd be pissed off if anyone expected him to show up to practice after yesterday.

His mother just hummed. "Do you want to come down to the kitchen?" she asked, shifting slightly on the bed and Niou shook his head. "I'll make you a nice drink and breakfast. I want you to eat something."

She'd obviously seen his barely touched dinner from last night, then.

They sat in silence for a long time before Niou answered and he moved his arms, scrubbing at his face before he sat up properly.

He mumbled something at her and moved to get out of bed, reluctantly pushing himself up and shuffling to the door. His body was almost on automatic as he went down the hallway and the stairs, turning into the kitchen. Niou slumped down in his usual seat at the table, ignoring his father who was sitting watching the news on the television.

Obviously his mother had spoken to him because there was a distinct lack of annoying 'what're your plans today?' that usually made early breakfasts awkward and motivated Niou to miss them.

His father instead spoke to his mother, letting Niou just sit there silently and stare blankly at the brightly patterned tablecloth. There was no pause in their conversation --- about the various merits of his sister's boyfriend's hair, of all things --- as his mother slid a cup of hot chocolate across the table to him, followed by buttered toast.

The toast tasted like cardboard and he could barely swallow the first mouthful. Niou pushed it away almost immediately, much to the worried glance of his mother. The hot chocolate though was warm and sweet and rich and Niou drank it without complaint.

"Morning." His brother, Kazuki was coming into the kitchen now and Niou just hunched some more over his warm cup.

It took all of two seconds for his brother to notice the cup of hot chocolate Niou was nursing. "Mum, I want hot chocolate too."

"Sorry, Masaharu got the last packet. I'll buy more today."

"You look like you've been dumped by a girl," Kazuki said to him.

Niou glanced up just in time to see Kazuki wrinkle his nose and Niou snapped, slamming the cup down on the table, barely feeling the hot drink splash over the rim onto his hand.

"Kazuki!" his mother.

He fought the urge to throw the cup at him or at the wall or something, instead getting up and kicking the chair away. "I'm going upstairs." he said, already halfway out the door.

Niou ran into his sister in the hallway to his room and he just pushed past her wordlessly, slamming his bedroom door shut behind him.

\---

Niou had showered during the day and had made his mother go through his wardrobe to find pajamas for him while he sat on the bed in a towel. There were too many of Yagyuu's clothes in his wardrobe, particularly in the pajama section where he'd filched them during their many sleepovers.

He had declined the suggestion of sitting and watching some television or going out somewhere, choosing instead to just sit in bed and stare at the wall, barely hearing the still playing music.

He was vaguely aware of some empty feeling in his stomach, but his chest felt hollow as well and his mind numb.

"Yagyuu..." he choked on his own mumbled words and immediately felt his chest tighten and Niou swore, biting his lip hard and forced himself to breathe and think of something else.

Girls, sex, crepes, saxophones, underwear, condoms... Niou swallowed thickly and sat up properly again, leaning back against the wall.

"Masaharu, your friends are here to see you." His mother suddenly knocked on the door and Niou glanced at the clock in surprise.

Already well into the afternoon. But it was still too early for training to be finished, which was strange.

"I don't want to see them," he said, looking away pointedly from the door as it opened. His lips tightened into a line as he saw the entirely of the tennis regular group come into his room out of the corner of his eye.

"I'll go get some drinks," his mother said, closing the door behind her and leaving them alone.

There was a heavy, stifling atmosphere that made Niou twitch and he reached over for his phone to turn up the sound of the music, avoiding looking at anyone.

"How are yo--"

"Go away," Niou said, cutting across whoever was talking and stared at the wall next to him. He clenched his hands in the blankets and god he suddenly felt like Yukimura probably had when he'd been in hospital.

The pity, the awkwardness, the not knowing what to say, the not wanting to see them... the not wanting them to see _him_ like this.

"Niou—"

"Are you all deaf or something?" Niou said, raising his voice and turning to look at them all. "I'm telling you to _fuck off_ and _leave me alone_." He grabbed the first thing he laid his hands on - his bedside lamp - and threw it at them.

It would've been more effective if the cable hadn't caught and the lamp fallen short, hitting the ground with a crash; but the message was clear enough.

There was a dead silence for a long moment.

"Stop being childish." That was Sanada's voice and Niou turned his glare on him, standing near the front of the group.

"Oh yes, that's right." Niou slammed his hand on the bed and pushed himself up, his hands clenching into fists at his side. "It's not like my _best friend_ just died and none of my fucking friends had the balls to tell me, is it!?" He kept talking, practically shouting over the top of annoying, placating Jackal and Yukimura. "No, Niou just has to come back to training so the fucking team can still compete and Yagyuu can be easily enough replaced, can't he!?"

It was possibly the stupidest thing he'd ever done, but Niou leaped at Sanada, punching him squarely in the jaw and barrelling into him, sending them both to the floor.

He was shouting something as he punched Sanada again, but he wasn't sure what and before he knew it, there were arms around his waist and hands on his elbows and Niou fought, still swearing at Sanada as he was pulled back.

Niou's mind suddenly cleared and the sounds rushed back, the music, Marui saying his name behind him and he slumped backwards into Jackal's hold. He choked on a sob and gritted his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut, hot tears dribbling down his nose and onto the floor and fuck he didn't want people to see him like this.

Something - probably the sound of him crying or shouting, or maybe just really good timing - made Niou's mother appear in the door just then and he vaguely saw her look at him through his blurry vision.

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave." With the force of a bull, she made her way towards Niou and pulled him out of Jackal's grip. Niou clung to his mother and she awkwardly shooed everyone out.

He just heard their goodbye and wishes that he got better. "Want... Yukimura," he mumbled. She stroked his hair and called back Yukimura.

"I'll leave you two alone." He got transferred into Yukimura's arms and Niou sniffed and snorted, wrapping his arms around Yukimura.

In return, he got a very tight gripped hug that seemed to squeeze all the air and tears out of him and Niou flailed a bit before settling down and hugging back just as hard.

"Renji got the details off Yagyuu's uncle," Yukimura said, his mouth close to Niou's ear. "You should talk to him later."

There was a nasty twist in his stomach at the thought of knowing exactly what happened, but at the same time... he wanted to know. Niou just grunted in reply and found himself being squished a bit more.

"And I'm refusing your request to leave the club." Yukimura patted him on the back awkwardly. "And stop ignoring our phone calls."

"I should've asked Marui to stay instead," Niou said. He pulled out of Yukimura's hug and slumped back down onto his bed.

"He would've said the same thing." Yukimura raised his eyebrows at Niou and moved to the door. "I expect you back at training as soon as possible."

\---

Niou ignored Yukimura's wishes and continued to skip school and training. His mother came up every morning to see him and check if he had slept and if he was going to school, to which he just looked away and tried not to see the increasingly worried looks on her face.

He fainted at the dinner table from exhaustion on the third night and got given sleeping tablets when he woke up.

The days blurred together but even though he told himself he needed to get up and do something, his body didn't want to move from the warm bed.

On the weekend, his sister finally took charge. "Alright, I need to go shopping, Masaharu you're coming with me."

A week ago, he might have cared and been slightly intimidated by Miyabi kicking open his door and pushing aside the barricade he'd put up. Now however, he just looked at her blankly.

"I need you to help carry the bags. There's a cute pair of shoes I want and I don't want them to sell out." She was already stepping over the piles of things he'd thrown on the ground in random fits of anger and making her way to the wardrobe.

"I don't want to go."

She turned to look at him steadily and raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware I was giving you a choice." She turned back to rooting around in his cupboard and emerged with some clean clothes. "Put these on."

"I said I'm not going."

"I'll buy you a crepe."

Niou fell silent and found the clothes tossed into his lap. "Yagyuu buys me crepes," he said, staring down at the clothes and his throat became thick and clogged and he coughed to clear it.

She reached down and pulled on his hair, breaking him out of his thoughts and he jerked, reaching back to smack away her hand.

"Fine, icecream then. Or a sundae, or something."

Her voice seemed off and Niou looked up with a frown, pausing at odd expression on her face. There was the thought that his self-absorbed sister who normally didn't care what he did, was actually... _worried_ about him and Niou stared at her some more.

"I don't need you commenting on the size of my penis today. Get out," he said, getting out of bed and shooing her out of the room, already starting to pull off his pajama top to get dressed.

\---

It was weird being outside again after almost a week indoors and Niou found himself dragging his feet a bit as they walked towards the store. His sister was talking about her boyfriend and her friends at university and how some cute part-timer at the coffee shop she went to on the way to class tried to get her phone number. Niou barely heard what she was saying and grunted as she paused to take breath.

His mind was blank and his stomach, chest, felt hollow and fragile.

He didn't even really notice as they got to the icecream shop and his sister ushered him into a table, leaving him there to go order.

Niou's hearing was too sensitive without the constant jazz music or his sister's voice next to him and he could hear the clink of people's spoons against their cups and the sound of the woman in the next booth's teeth scraping against her fork every time she spoke. Someone sniffed further up in the store and Niou fought the urge to bang his head on the table and stuff his fingers in his ears to make them all shut up. He breathed in through his clenched teeth and shuffled his feet on the floor.

He got out his phone and his hands shook as he randomly pressed buttons, their clicking and the little beeping noises some level of comfort and his keyboard flashed every time he pressed a button.

"Hey Niou!" There was a sudden voice near the table and Niou nearly dropped his phone as he turned to look.

Marui, Jackal and Kirihara, all looking surprised and somewhat awkward at the sight of him. Niou averted his eyes from them and he went back to looking at his phone.

"Niou-senpai, what are--"

"Akaya, let's go look at the icecream flavours," Jackal said, cutting across him and Niou closed his eyes as he heard them walk away.

Once they were gone, Marui didn't hesitate before sliding onto the couch next to him and Niou twitched away from the hug, shutting his phone with a snap.

"It's good to see you out, you know," Marui said, sounding all kinds of awkward and Niou just grunted in response.

"When're you coming back to class? Everyone's been asking about you and I've been getting your homework. And Asai-sensei's been getting too complacent without you in maths."

Niou was silent for a long time and Marui thankfully didn't press him for an answer. He picked at the corner of his phone and scraped his nails along the length of his phone strap, more to just do something other than just sit still and be stifled.

"I dunno. Don't really want to."

Marui opened his mouth to respond but was stopped as Miyabi reappeared, armed with an icecream cone and a large sundae which she put in front of Niou.

She snapped her fingers and looked at Marui. "You're Masaharu's tennis friend, aren't you?" How she knew that when Niou couldn't remember ever introducing her to the team baffled him. She didn't wait for Marui to answer and instead turned to Niou. "Masaharu, sorry, my friend's over there and I have to go talk to them. You'll be okay eating this for a while, yeah?"

"Yeah," Niou mumbled in return, staring at the giant pile of brightly coloured icecream, fruits and sprinkles in front of him rather glumly.

There was an awkward pause between him and Marui filled by the sound of Marui chewing his gum and Niou started to eat, running the edge of his spoon along the scoop of icecream to scoop off little curls of the different flavours.

"So... the funeral's tomorrow, you're coming right?" Marui said finally, and Niou clenched his hand, closing his eyes.

"My mum was going to give me a lift there, we can come pick you up if you want?"

Niou's hand shook and he dropped the spoon and goddamnit, why was Jackal and Akaya taking so stupidly long to look at a few things of icecream?

"Yukimura said you can wear whatever you want. I don't think he'd mind."

He was so aware of how carefully Marui was talking and how he was avoiding saying Yagyuu Yagyuu Yagyuu's name, but Niou could hear it anyway.

There was a hand on his shoulder and now Marui was giving him a hug from the side and Niou dug his teeth into his bottom lip. He wanted to shove him off and make a scene, but they were in public and part of him really didn't want the warm thing attached to his side to go away.

Marui finally pulled away and he heard the spoon being picked up again and Marui starting to eat. Typical him.

"Come back to class soon, okay? It's not as fun without you anymore."

Niou swallowed and looked away staring across the shop to look at the cheesy picture son the walls and the bad 3D figurines of icecream people.

"Maybe."

The spoon clanked against the glass and Marui's voice was suddenly sharper. "Everyone knows Yagyuu was changing your records so you didn't fail."

Niou's heart clenched and a hand was squeezing around it harder with each breath as Marui spoke.

"He wouldn't want you to fail now because of him."

Niou slammed his hand down on the table and the tables around them fell silent, but he didn't care. "Don't tell me what he would want." he said, his voice unexpectedly steady and he stared at the chair opposite him instead of Marui. "You have _no idea_ , so just shut up."

Marui pushed back the icecream and spoon to Niou and he took in a few deep, angry breaths before he snatched away the spoon and started shovelling the icecream into his mouth, barely tasting it and he sniffed, angrily wiping his eyes that had annoying started to mist up again.

"What time do I have to be ready by?" he asked, mumbling around a melting mouthful of icecream and Marui smiled at him.

Jackal and Kirihara appeared just then, right in time, Kirihara proudly telling Marui about the amazing new toffee flavour of icecream they had and how he'd wheedled his way into getting a free waffle on his. They both squashed into the booth and handed Marui a cone of something and it was oddly... _nice_ hearing them talk about how Sanada had thrashed some seniors the other day 6-0.

Niou's stiff facial muscles twitched and he scrunched up his face, his mouth settling into the normal frown that had been his usual expression for the past few days.

"What's wrong?" Marui asked, elbowing him in the side.

"… Brain freeze," Niou said, the first thing that came to his mind and he looked miserably at his nearly finished sundae, the rest of the conversation just flowing through him without him paying any attention.

\---

Appearing at the funeral place with Marui was hard. He hadn't slept the previous night, having thrown out the sleeping pills that his mother had given him in favour of sitting at his desk and flicking numbly through the pages of Yagyuu's stupid Agatha Christie book without taking anything in.

He was wearing a suit that felt uncomfortable and itchy and he tugged at the tie, loosening it as they stepped out of the car.

There was Yagyuu's aunt and uncle at the entrance, greeting some other family members that had just arrived. Niou dragged his feet even more the closer they got to the entrance and Marui had to hold onto his hand and pull him forward, Niou half purposely, half subconsciously digging his heels in and making it difficult.

"You must be Niou." Yagyuu's aunt said as they reached the door and she took a hold of his hand and squeezed it and Niou couldn't help but squeeze automatically back. "We've heard a lot of good things about you."

Niou just managed to stop himself from snorting and he found himself nodding and then blanking out again, letting the uncle say something that he didn't hear and then Marui drag him off into the main area.

There were sounds of people talking which automatically made Niou pull back. "I can't do this."

"Come on, 'Haru," Marui said, stopping and turning to look at him. "The rest of the team's here, it'll be fine. And there's some cake here too."

"You're blocking the pathway."

Niou turned around to face the person that spoke and found himself face to face with Yanagi and Sanada, both in suits and looking slightly more intimidating for it.

"Fine." Niou pulled his hand out of Marui's grip, turned around and without another glance at the others, walked into the room.

There were people in there... Yagyuu's family, Niou assumed. He could see Yagyuu's homeroom teacher as well, and the rest of the tennis club standing in a group. The three behind him went to join that group and Niou found himself standing very alone.

He looked around some more and moved to sit down on one of the chairs around the room, loosening his tie some more and he undid the top button of his shirt. That was better.

Niou pointedly ignored the looks he was getting from the tennis club members and kicked his feet against the floor.

"Niou." He glanced up and looked at Yagyuu's parents and sister who were in front of him suddenly and his heart stopped.

"We're glad you're here." That was his mother, one arm in a sling and bandage, one leg wrapped up as well. Niou's mouth twitched and he stood up, letting himself be pulled into a hug.

"Yeah." Niou didn't really know what else to say.

"Hiroshi is..." Yagyuu's father was harder to look at that his mother. The same brown hair and glasses, the same face shape just with lines of care around the mouth and eyes. Niou made a choking noise and he clenched his eyes shut, clinging some more into the hug.

"Hiroshi has some items that you might like," his father continued after a long pause. His voice was mostly steady, as though he was beyond grief. But then again, Yagyuu had never cried much either. "We'd like you to come over and take what... what you want from his room."

"Yeah, thanks," Niou said after a very long silence and Yagyuu's mother pulled away from the hug. "I'll come over... later."

They left him after that, off to do the rounds around the room and talk to everyone. Niou sat back down in his chair, watching as they spoke briefly to the tennis regulars.

He wondered if they too were being offered the chance to go through Yagyuu's possessions and there was a sudden rush of irritation and he clenched his hands in the fabric of his trousers. He stood up abruptly and purposely looked away from everyone, heading over to the table to get a glass of water.

Niou stood alone at the table for an unknown amount of time and he stared blankly at the tablecloth and the little puddle of water on it that someone must have made accidentally when getting a drink. He barely heard everyone else talking in the room, but the sound of someone laughing cut through his blocked hearing and Niou gripped his glass tightly.

He spoke some more to Yagyuu's aunt and spent an awkward while sitting in silence with Yagyuu's younger sister who seemed to have lost the ability to cry. Niou almost envied her for that. He got up and walked away whenever any of the tennis members - first Jackal, then Renji and lastly Akaya - approached him, only returning when they'd given up.

"It's time to start the service, could everyone please follow me," a man finally said, standing at the entrance to the room.

Niou found himself falling into step next to a wizened old man who squinted at him through his glasses and shuffled along with the rest of the group.

No one spoke; any laughter that had been there before was gone and Niou's chest tightened the closer they got to the final room.

He slid into a random row of seats. Niou glanced at the front and saw the white, pristine surface on which a photo frame was sitting and it took him a moment to realise what the surface was and he forced himself to look away.

"Hey, move along." Marui elbowed him and Niou didn't even think before he shuffled along a bit before he was stopped by Yukimura on his other side.

He stared at his knees instead, his heart thumping loudly in his chest and he could have sworn everyone heard it as the room fell silent as everyone sat down.

It beat in his ears, a constant thumping that drowned out what was being said. The only words that got through were 'Yagyuu' and 'Hiroshi' and they played over and over in his head and he let out a small, pained moan, bending down until his forehead hit the back of the seat in front. 

His chest was burning and he could feel tears already beginning to drip down but he didn't give a fuck and he just gripped his trousers, his hair, dragging his nails across his scalp and he fought to stop himself from crying out loud.

He barely registered Yukimura getting up and moving and only realised the space next to him was empty when he heard the other boy start talking out the front.

Niou could hear words now, which just made it worse and he stuffed his fingers in his ears but they still filtered through.

Tennis... doubles... talented... good sportsman... friend...; all in Yukimura's calm, steady voice.

Niou finally gave in, a choked sob making it's way out and he struggled to breathe in again, gasping and Yukimura paused in his talk and Niou could almost feel people staring at him as he sobbed again, his chin shaking as he tried to clench his teeth together.

This was so fucking ridiculous.

Marui's arm was around his back, his hand patting his shoulder and Niou wanted to push him away but he couldn't and he just shook his head but that made no difference.

He heard the man - Yagyuu's uncle - from far away, asking if anyone else wanted to say anything. Yukimura slid into the seat next to him again and patted him on the back.

There was the sudden urge to get up and move to the front. There was the horrible horrible urge to tell Yagyuu that he was a selfish bastard and that he hated him for leaving him alone. But his legs wouldn't move and his knees shook at just the thought of supporting his weight. 

There were more words, but he didn't hear them and he became aware of people around him moving. Was it over already?

"We're going to go put flowers on the... the coffin," Marui said, putting a hand under his armpit and hoisting him up.

Niou gripped the back of the seat in front of him to steady himself and quickly scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, sniffing loudly. Marui looked very red eyed and his lip was trembling a bit and behind him, Niou could see Jackal and Kirihara hugging.

"Yeah okay," Niou's voice cracked and he turned away.

Yukimura, Yanagi and Sanada went up together with a bunch of flowers Yukimura seemed to have brought himself. The paper rustled as they set it down on the coffin and through the blurry film over his eyes, Niou thought the three of them looked as firm and controlled as ever and he almost hated them for it.

He hadn't thought about bringing flowers... he didn't even know what sort of flowers Yagyuu liked. Niou would've associated him more with leafy ferns and pot plants rather than the basket of neatly cut roses that he picked one from.

He could barely see as he walked closer, and he blinked to clear his eyes, feeling the wetness and found himself staring at the wooden framed photograph on top. Yagyuu, a polite smile, hair as neat as ever, the flash of his glasses... Niou put the rose down on the lid of the coffin and clenched his fingers, his nails dragging along the lacquered wood as though he wanted to carve some small part of him into it to be burnt with Yagyuu's body.

He'd been up at the coffin for longer than other people and there were people walking around him and going back to their seats but he just kept staring at the photo. Niou wanted to smash it, throw it on the ground, get rid of the stupid smile on Yagyuu's face and make him feel as fucking _miserable_ as he felt right now. 

"I..." hate you, "… sorry," he said and forced himself to turn away and head back to his seat.

\---

One of Yagyuu's cousins gave him a lift to the crematorium and Niou sat silently the back seat of the car, just grunting in reply to the awkward questions the other passengers asked him and just stared out the window.

The drive was long and slow and he was silent as he stepped out of the car. The rest of the team was there, having gotten lifts with other people and he could see Sanada's mother getting out of the car a few parks away - she'd been a close friend of Yagyuu's mother, he remembered. 

The air outside was light and there were flowers and trees surrounding them. But it was at the same time, thick and heavy and hard to breathe and there were too many people around him.

"Please follow behind the hearse to the crematorium," the man said and they fell into a slow walking group that went down the driveway.

Niou made himself look away as the pallbearers moved in to carry the coffin again, closing his eyes and determinedly facing away. He hadn't been asked for the position... he wouldn't have _wanted_ it, either. The thought of going near the coffin now made his stomach turn and he bent over and held onto his knees, taking a deep breath and fighting the urge to throw up.

There was classical music playing as they entered the building, a very familiar piece that he had a feeling was one of Yagyuu's favourites that he'd played while they lazed around his room or something. He'd never paid it much attention before now.

He sat down when directed, sliding to the end of the row and looking around the plain room. Yagyuu's flower-covered coffin was the most decorative thing in it and Niou pressed his lips tightly together, closing his eyes and trying to block out what the man at the front was saying.

He didn't want to hear. Didn't want to hear anything more about Yagyuu, anything about his name change or about his family.

Jackal elbowed him in the side suddenly and Niou opened his eyes, looking at the coffin slowly moving backwards towards a covered opening in the wall. The curtain's opened and Niou's brain caught up to what was happening.

It was being sent off to be cremated.

He could just see part of Yagyuu's photo and his pathetic excuse for a flower next to it and the music started playing again, louder this time, too calm and too elegant when part of him felt like it was dying the further the coffin got from him.

Niou sniffed loudly, not caring and bit his lip, his eyes stinging. Clenching them shut didn't make them feel better, nor did any tears escape.

He sat there for too long, listening to the music, listening to Jackal next to him, sniffing as well and Niou wiped his nose on his sleeve, rubbing at his eyes with his hands.

Later, Niou stood in the side room, feeling very alone and empty for all the people around him. He'd seen Sanada, Yukimura and Yanagi go off to stand in a quiet corner together outside but he couldn't even spare a moment to wonder what they were doing.

Kirihara was crying and Niou stared blankly at him, his eyes still burning but nothing coming of it.

"So, I think we should get together on Yagyuu's birthday," Jackal said, breaking the silence and he stuck his hands in his pockets.

Niou wanted to make a smartass comment about how they'd have training on that day anyway, but his throat got stuck and he swallowed, jerking his head instead.

"To talk about Yagyuu and look over some old stuff."

"That sounds good," Marui said, rubbing Kirihara's shoulder as the other boy sniffed. "We can bake a cake and stuff too."

Niou licked his lips and made another non-committal jerk of his head. He mumbled something and pushed past them to head to a corner and stare at the wall.

"You're a cruel bastard, you know that, right?" Niou said to the wall, squatting down and resting his forehead on his knees. "This wouldn't've happened if you'd kept to our plans."

He took in a shaky breath and his shoulders trembled slightly and Niou exhaled, just as shakily. "Didn't even let me call you."

Niou kept talking to himself quietly until someone touched him lightly on the shoulder and said his name. He turned around so quickly he nearly fell over and stared up at Yagyuu's father who looked careworn with tired eyes underneath the glasses.

"Thank you for coming." Yagyuu's father held out a hand and helped Niou up. Niou squeezed it as he stood up and his eyes welled up again as Yagyuu's father squeezed back. "Hiroshi was very thankful to have you as a friend."

That just made it worse. Typical Yagyuu that wouldn't tell him something like that.

"Study hard and enjoy life, Niou," he said, shaking his hand and then pulling away.

"Yeah, thanks." Niou didn't really know what else to say and he couldn't even bring himself to smile or force one.

He was thankful Yagyuu's father didn't smile either, since he knew it would be the carbon copy polite smile and Niou couldn't deal with that right now. Or ever.

Yagyuu's father turned away and walked towards the other regulars, probably to tell them the same things and shake their hands. From the back, he looked much too the same. Even down to the black suit and shoes that Niou could too easily imagine Yagyuu wearing. 

Niou stared longer, watching them talk and it was all too easy to imagine him as Yagyuu, talking to those three about mundane tennis matters or school and Niou had to sniff loudly again and he finally headed to the door leading outside, rummaging in his pocket for his phone.

He was going home to try not to think about the empty pit inside his chest.

\---

He returned to school the Wednesday after the funeral. He didn't go to tennis practice, purposely staying at home late and getting his mother to drive him in when he knew everyone would be on the courts and there was no risk of running into them on his way to the classroom.

There was talking in the classroom as he approached and he opened the door, stepping in and ignoring the sudden cessation of the conversations as his classmates saw him, moving to his desk.

Everything there seemed to be untouched; his books, the collection of thumbtacks he'd been carefully taking off posters around the school, his screwed up paper with a doodled picture of Sanada in a dress... Niou folded his arms on the desk and buried his face in them.

He didn't want to be here, but Marui's words from the other day had wormed away at his guilt long enough. But even now, he was regretting coming. He could hear the other people in the room mentioning his name and Niou groaned and tried to block them out.

The lack of noises other than people's quiet voices was maddening.

Niou kicked his desk leg and groaned and heard more people coming into the classroom.

Finally the inevitable happened and Marui came in, which he knew from the loud voice outside in the hallway and the pop of bubblegum that sounded so much louder than everything else. The first thing he seemed to spot was Niou because his voice suddenly died.

"Hey, Niou." Marui seemed to forget about his previous conversation and made his way over to Niou's far-side desk, sitting in the chair in front.

Niou just ignored him, burying his face into his arms some more and he flinched as he felt Marui touch his hair.

Don'ttouchmyhair.

"You should've come to training this morning if you were coming today," Marui said. "It's really not the same without you, you know."

"It's not the same without Yagyuu either," Niou mumbled, turning his head slightly.

"Hey, come on, look," Marui said, making Niou lift his head and he looked awkwardly up at him, still hunched over his desk. "Everyone misses you. You don't have to play if you don't want to, just come."

Niou was saved from having to answer as their homeroom teacher came in. He saw her look at him and smile and Niou turned his head away, and looked out the window instead.

\---

Niou left the classroom during their study period. His other classmates had finally approached him during that, talking about how he'd been missing school and was he better now?

Their voices, their oppressive closeness, was all too much for him and the silence up at the roof would be much more preferable.

He stopped at the roof door, his hand slipping off the handle and he stared at the metal. He... couldn't go up there, he couldn't bring himself to open the door. Niou clenched his hand into a fist and hit the door, hearing the metal thunk and he swore, sitting down in the corner and leaning against the wall.

Niou brought his knees up and pressed his face into them, wrapping his arms around his knees. It was cold in the corner and didn't have the sun to make up for the lack of comfortable surfaces. There was the crazed thought about going back to the classroom, but that would be admitting failure.

He stared at his knees and at the wall opposite. Niou laid down and stared at the ceiling, cushioning his head with his arms until they started to lose feeling in them. Normally he'd be asleep, dozing in the sun and waiting for Yagyuu to appear and wake him up, but his eyes weren't heavy and his mind an odd combination of active and empty at the same time.

Time passed strangely and he was surprised when he heard people coming up the stairs. Niou turned his head to look and saw the whole tennis team approaching him, all armed with their lunches.

"Wha--?" Niou sat up and blinked as Marui held out his lunchbox, handing it over.

"It's the designated lunch hour, we're coming to eat in our usual spot," Yanagi said and Niou could just see his mushroom hair in the back of the group.

"Yeah, why're you sitting here, Niou-senpai? It's really nice outside."

Niou tried to talk a few times and failed, shaking his head. "I... I can't."

Everyone seemed to understand straight away and Yukimura acted first, sitting down next to him and starting to unwrap his lunch, passing over a chocolate bread to him. "We'll eat lunch here then. Sanada, Renji, sit on the steps --- you're too tall."

"Eating in new places is good for the digestion," Yanagi added in, following Yukimura's directions and sitting down on a lower step, Sanada joining him.

Niou bit his lip as everyone said some other silly, placating things --Kirihara's "I think this floor is softer anyway," was by far the most ridiculous - and he stared down at his lunchbox and very slowly and deliberately opened it to eat.

He didn't talk much, concentrating on eating his lunch and making as much noise clacking the chopsticks against the side of his lunchbox and rustling the plastic wrapper of the chocolate bread.

There was nearly no mention of Yagyuu in their conversation but even so, Niou felt the lack of his presence, mostly when he pushed away his lunch towards Marui and went to lie down. Niou sighed and leaned against the wall instead, closing his eyes.

"There's a relatively new pair of shoes in Yagyuu's locker, if you wanted them," Yukimura said, sliding over to squash next to Niou and he gave him a tight hug.

Niou made a noise and pressed his lips together, shrugging. "I dunno." He... honestly hadn't given any thought to Yagyuu's possessions. And nor did he really want to right now. "I still... have to go through his room first," he said slowly, wincing as Yukimura's arms tightened around him even more. "I'll do it sometime."

He had also noticed that Yukimura hadn't brought up his lack of attending tennis practice. But he wasn't going to ask him about it, since that would open him up to it.

"I'll keep them in there, then."

That implied that they weren't going to be looking for a new replacement regular any time soon, if Yagyuu's locker was going to still be occupied by the pair of shoes. It was probably a good thing too.

"Yeah," Niou said. "I'll let you know."

\---

Even with what he'd told Yukimura, Niou didn't go over to Yagyuu's house until the weekend and he felt extremely uncomfortable as he rung the doorbell, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and waiting.

Yagyuu's mother opened the door and let him in and Niou listened as she went on with the usual pleasantries about how it was nice to see him again and she hoped he was going well. She was looking marginally better physically and Niou stared at her for a moment longer, wondering how she felt knowing that she'd survived the crash.

Niou pulled off his shoes and went to line them up against the wall, his fingers going numb and the shoes dropping as he noticed the still-filled Yagyuu's shoe compartments on the rack, all neatly lined up.

"I'm making lunch soon if you want to stay for it."

Niou shook his head and he could hear Yagyuu's father moving around the far room. "I'm fine, thanks."

She seemed to though and she smiled. "Just go up to Hiroshi's room, Niou. I'll get you a drink."

He nodded and looked at Yagyuu's shoes one more time before heading up the stairs to Yagyuu's room. It seemed exactly the same as it always was... even though some part of him felt that it should be different for some reason.

No one had been in there to clean though, if the layer of dust over things was anything to go by. Not that he blamed them.

Niou fell into the usual pattern, even if the room felt twice as large and yet still small and stifling without Yagyuu there, and turned on the television. Some anime came on and he vaguely remembered changing the channel to that from the golf channel Yagyuu normally had it on, last time he'd been over.

He hadn't brought anything to carry things in, but Yagyuu had a good backpack up in the cupboard and Niou took that out first before looking around.

The books could probably go first. Niou found the shelf of neatly piled crime novels and he picked out the ones with the most worn spines and put them in a pile. Most of them he could very vividly remember being in Yagyuu's school bag at one point or another, or him reading them while Niou played video games on his television.

He took some of the nicer pens and hesitated over his pajama drawer before taking Yagyuu's favourite pair - a boring green and gray plaid - and stuffed it right down to the bottom of the bag. He couldn't count the number of times he'd seen Yagyuu's wearing them during their sleepovers.

Niou found his tennis bag, propped up in a corner where Yagyuu had probably put it after coming home on the Friday from dinner with Niou. He had to take a deep breath before opening it, pulling out the two racquets and the tennis uniform.

He felt a block in his throat as he held the more used of the racquets in his hand and he forced himself to swallow, looking down at it through suddenly blurry eyes.

There was the dents on the frame where he'd lost his temper with the racquet when he'd stuffed up the laser beam. And there was the dent from when Yagyuu'd accidentally hit the net pole when reaching for a volley during one of their matches.

It was practically half his racquet as well, but he could almost feel Yagyuu's hand gripping the racquet as well and Niou switched hands, falling into the familiar grip, just a bit more to the right than his own.

The tears were dribbling down now again despite his best efforts and Niou swore, dropping the racquet and getting up to get a tissue. He raided Yagyuu's CD collection on his desk while he was there, holding a tissue to his dripping nose and sniffing.

Niou knew the most listened to CDs - he'd looked at their covers enough when he'd asked what stupid music they were listening to now - and he shoved them into the bag as well.

Yagyuu's mother finally appeared with a plate of biscuits and some juice and Niou mumbled a thanks, putting them on the desk. He expected her to leave straight away and leave him alone in the room, so he was surprised when he heard her talk.

"We found Hiroshi's phone as well." She held it out to him, something he hadn't noticed she'd been holding before.

It was the same as ever, the large, bright screen, the rainbow flashing keys that he'd selected when he'd hijacked Yagyuu's phone once. Niou slid it open and closed again, seeing the sterile picture of a tree and a field as the background and he tucked it into his pocket.

"Thanks." There was no question as to whether he was allowed to keep it or not.

Yagyuu's mother smiled at him and looked around the room, sighing. "We weren't sure what to do with everything."

"Yeah." Niou just grimaced and looked around the room as well.

"He wrapped a present for you as well, I'm not sure where he put it though. That boy..." she trailed off and she suddenly looked years older.

There was a long awkward pause. "Feel free to take whatever you want, Niou. He would've wanted you to have it."

Niou wasn't really sure what to say... he had pretty much everything from Yagyuu's room he wanted now. But he nodded and thanked her and she left, seeming all to happy to get away from her son's bedroom.

He sighed and moved to sit on the bed, bouncing on it a little and he flopped back onto the pillows. Niou could see the little scraps of paper still stuck on the ceiling from where he'd put a poster of a naked girl above Yagyuu's bed as a present.

"I wonder if you ever figured out how I got it up there..." Niou said.

Probably not.

\---

"I read a book today with a character in it that reminded me of you."

Niou laughed and stretched out some more in bed. "Yeah?"

"Yes. It was an insane, perverted dwarf clown." He could hear Yagyuu laughing through the phone.

"That's not nice. Why'd he remind you of me?"

"Just many things. Mostly because the insanity was just an act."

Niou hummed and pulled a face, switching the phone over to his other ear. "Was he hot, at least?" Yagyuu mumbled an answer that he didn't quite hear. "Sorry, what?"

There was another mumbled answer and then silence and Niou suddenly found it hard to speak and he gripped the phone in his hand tighter. "Hello? Hello?"

He suddenly became aware that the room was dark but he didn't pay it any attention as he sat up in bed and looked around for his phone. Yagyuu must have fallen asleep or something, the clock said it was 2:30AM, afterall.

Niou grabbed his phone and redialled Yagyuu's number, putting the phone to his ear again. He waited for a moment before the phone started ringing and the other phone on his desk lit up and started ringing; a plain, default 4 ringtone.

He stared at it for a few long moments, still hearing the ringing and it finally clicked and the phone slipped out of his hand onto the bed, the ringing stopping as it went to voicemail.

Fuck.

Niou closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, grabbing his phone and abruptly threw it at the wall, hearing it thunk against the wood and he suddenly let out a wordless bellow of anger and threw his pillow and the stupid fucking blue kidney dish on his bedside table and the glass of water that smashed.

"Fucking piece of fucking shit fuck damn!" Niou threw the other pillow as well, hitting the door as it opened and his mother and father were in the door way.

He tried to breathe and shook his head at them asking what had happened and said a very wet "no" and Niou sniffed and gripped his hair in his hands.

Niou made a pained noise and drew his legs up and started to cry, not really caring that his puffy haired brother was now at the door staring at him and his sister was there too, barely clothed. He just wanted Yagyuu Yagyuu Yagyuu, damnit, why was that so hard?

\---

Niou continued going to school very reluctantly, but he refused to go to training, purposely staying behind in the classroom after school and coming early to avoid seeing any of the club members in the hallway. 

None of the regulars mentioned his absence though he could hear Sanada and Renji talking about it sometimes during lunch on the stairs to the roof. It was easy to ignore though.

He dragged himself through the week and the next, barely listening in class and ignoring that he was losing weight and his grades oddly enough, picking up. It wasn't until one physical education class that he had to go anywhere near the tennis courts.

"If you've got your own tennis racquets, go get them now. Otherwise get into groups and get onto the courts." the teacher said, directing them through the fence onto the courts.

Marui was armed with his usual racquet, but Niou had taken a look at the battered collection of school racquets and refused to touch them, crossing his arms and turning away. They were quite a fair bit away from the courts and Niou turned his back on them so he didn't have to see.

Sanada - and Yagyuu's - class was in their group as well for physical education as usual and Niou could easily imagine Sanada getting angry with their classmates for disrespecting his courts.

Even though he had his back to the courts, he could still hear the sound of the balls being hit and that was bad enough. Talking was a good way to block it out. And when Marui left, he could just cover his ears.

"Marui, go play," he said, elbowing him and jerking his head towards the tennis courts. "Sanada might explode if he doesn't have a proper game."

Despite the initial enthusiasm that he'd shown, Marui looked very reluctant now and he looked from Sanada to Niou back to Sanada. "No, I'll stay here."

"I'll sit there." He pointed to a spot under a tree nearby. "I'll be fine."

Before Marui could answer, a teacher called across at them. "Marui, Niou, what are you two doing over there? Get onto the tennis courts."

"Niou can't, sensei," Marui called back.

Thankfully the sensei seemed to understand what was going on with Niou and she didn't say anything else. Niou squatted down finally, crossing his arms over his knees and stared at the ground.

"I want to go sleep," he said, running his finger down a minute crack in the pavement.

"Niou, stop being a lazy ass."

He shut his eyes at that, hearing the crunch of Sanada's footsteps as he got closer and felt the foot on his bum, trying to push him over. "Stop slacking off and start playing."

"I don't play tennis," he said. God it was annoying having shared physical education with Sanada. No matter what sports they were playing.

"Bullshit." Sanada grabbed Niou by the elbow and pulled him up and Niou complained, pulling his arm free as fast as possible. "You're going to play me, right now."

Niou was turned around and he could see the tennis courts again and his classmates lightly hitting the balls to each other and he stared at Sanada instead, angry underneath his cap. "There's not enough time."

Sanada just glowered at him some more. "I'll crush you. Marui give him your racquet."

Niou refused to take it when Marui held his racquet out. Sanada grabbed it with a disgusted noise and proceeded to drag him over to the far court - the one he normally played on with Yagyuu.

He started to fight the closer they got, shouting at Sanada, not really caring or noticing who was looking at them, and he was pretty sure most people were.

Niou froze up as they reached the edge of the court and he could almost see Yagyuu at the blurry baseline, bouncing the tennis ball and waiting to serve and he'd be at the net, on the balls of his feet. He moaned and pulled at Sanada's grip on his arm.

"Your serve, Niou," Sanada said, pushing Marui's racquet into his chest and two balls. "Go."

"I'm not playing."

He really should have expected it, but Sanada suddenly hitting him across the face still came as a surprise and Niou staggered, swearing and cursing at Sanada.

"Get your ass onto the baseline and serve." Sanada just gave him one last look before turning around and marching to the other side of the court, waiting for a serve from Niou.

He hissed and rubbed his cheek, turning away from a teacher who was coming towards them looking - understandably - concerned. Niou gritted his teeth as he clenched his left hand on the racquet and he couldn't see the other side of the court clearly, but his body knew the actions and he threw himself into the serve, hitting it hard towards Sanada.

Niou blinked and he felt wetness slide down his cheek but he couldn't think about it, running for the next ball that was as usual, perfectly placed in the corner and he skidded as he hit it.

It was a frustratingly long point, Sanada making Niou run around the court and while he did wonder why he hadn't just stopped and where he noticed he was practically blinded, but there was the usual thrum of his blood as he ran for each ball and the urge to make Sanada _shut up_.

He slipped as he went for the ball and landed heavily on the court. Niou hissed as he stood up, his knees smarting.

"Get up and serve again," Sanada said loudly from the other side, hitting another ball towards him.

Niou got pummelled by Sanada, 6-1 and he struggled to breathe and drank Marui's water. Typical Sanada came up to him and held out a hand which Niou just stared at, ignoring it until he dropped it.

"You didn't use your Illusion," Sanada said.

He snorted and fingered the grip tape on Marui's racquet; it needed to be replaced soon. "You didn't use any of your techniques either."

"Training tomorrow morning. Don't miss it again."

Niou did notice that Sanada didn't mention the afternoon practice today and he found himself suddenly laughing for the first time in weeks, kicking Sanada in the leg. Fucking typical that it was Sanada who managed it.

\---

His mother gave him a strange look the next morning when he came downstairs early, dressed and ready to leave. He supposed she'd gotten used to him staying in his room until it was time to go to school and hadn't going to say anything about training.

He didn't eat much breakfast and picked at the toast until it'd looked like he'd tried enough. His stomach was churning too much to even think about eating and he went to put his shoes on and leave.

The rest of the regulars were probably in the change rooms as he got there, but other club members were there and he could hear them talking about him as he approached and could feel them looking. Some of them had probably been in his class yesterday and seen his fight with Sanada, but Niou didn't care.

As he went into the changing rooms everyone was talking and then went dead silent as they spotted him.

"Niou! You're here."

There was a general fussing and Niou gripped his tennis bag tighter, looking around the room. He hadn't been in here since... he'd found out about Yagyuu and the denial of what had happened.

He froze and stared at the two lockers side by side that no one was standing at and he closed his eyes, but the image of them seemed burned into his mind and he couldn't unsee them.

Goddamnit.

Niou let out a breath and he could feel someone next to him, and he pushed their hand off his elbow, turning around to face the door again. "I'm going to get changed somewhere else."

Outside - he didn't really care if people saw him - or in the bathroom at the front of the school or something.

"Leave your bag here." That was Yukimura and he could feel someone taking the bag off him. Niou let his grip slacken and let them take it. He stayed standing at the door with his eyes still closed, and heard his bag being unzipped and rummaged around in and someone press his tennis uniform into his chest.

"This looks like Yagyuu-senpai's..." Ah, it was Kirihara looking through his bag and found his racquet.

Niou swallowed and his grip tightened on the clothes and shoes and he didn't say anything as he opened the door and went outside, slamming it shut behind him.

He had no doubts about what everyone was thinking right now and he wondered how hard it had been for everyone else to go back to the tennis club with Yagyuu's locker still standing there and how long it had been until someone had looked through it - had they cleaned it out even?

Niou bit his lip as he got changed in the bathroom, out in the open, not really caring if anyone walked in and saw him in his underwear. He fixed his collar, staring at himself in the mirror as he flipped it up and then folded it down again, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown.

He needed a haircut.

Everyone was warming up as he got back and he stuck his folded school uniform on a bench, not really wanting to go looking for where his stuff had been put. Niou approached the group of regulars slowly, dragging his feet.

He didn't have his racquet and he stared at the pairs of people either stretching or helping each other stretch and he gritted his teeth.

Yukimura seemed to clue in from where he was practically sitting on Sanada's back to push him forward enough into the stretch and he looked up at Niou, smiling. "You still owe me laps for missing so much practice," he said, his smile widening. "Start with fifty and we'll go from there."

Niou didn't move and he kept staring at everyone else who were somewhere between trying to ignore the exchange and looking at him and god he really hated that pity.

"Niou. Go. Or I'll raise it to one hundred."

"My waterbottle's in my tennis bag," he said before he started running.

"I'll stretch with you after. Don't slack off," Yukimura called after him and then there was silence as Niou kept running.

It was quite soothing actually, the falling of his feet on the ground and the rhythm and he could almost hear his usual music playing. There were some regular tennis members playing on his usual court and normally he was the one to kick them off because Yagyuu didn't have the strange need to keep playing on the same court all the time and was generally too polite to tell people to get off.

His running slowed down a bit as he ran past the court and he watched the weak return of a serve but a decent forehand down the line after that.

"NIOU! Stop undressing other people with your eyes and keep running!" That was Yukimura again, shouting far too loudly at him and probably determined to continually watch him through all fifty laps to make sure he actually did them.

He found himself strangely laughing and shouting back to Yukimura. "I'm not interested in people that wear red briefs under their white tennis shorts, don't worry!" And then he just laughed harder and nearly slipped over as said person wearing them turned red and tried to hide them.

\---

Niou woke up very suddenly on the Wednesday to a still dark room and the clock by the bed saying it was just before 4AM. There was the lingering dream, which he had a feeling had something to do with him wearing an ascot and fedora and as disturbing as that thought was, he knew it wasn't the reason behind the feeling of unease in his stomach.

It took him a few moments before he realised what was wrong and he groaned, covering his face with the pillow. Today was the 19th October - Yagyuu's birthday.

He switched the music playing from some silly pop CDs he'd gotten from his sister to Yagyuu's favourite CD and sat in bed flicking mindlessly through a book until the rest of the house started waking up.

Even so, when he went downstairs for breakfast, he was still the first there and his mother was only just starting to cook the rice for their lunches. She smiled at him though when he sat down at the table and started talking to him, asking what he'd want in his lunch and if he'd like some sandwiches for breakfast.

Niou drank the hot chocolate in front of him and watched the morning news in half silence, occasionally commenting to his mother about things. His phone buzzed halfway through the plate of fruit he shared with his brother and Niou held a slice of apple between his teeth as he read the message from Yukimura.

_Bring overnight things to school. We're having a get-together at Jackal's house tonight. Don't be late to training._

He vaguely remembered Jackal mentioning something about doing something on Yagyuu's birthday together and he texted back a smiley face with a hat to Yukimura.

"I'm going over to a friend's house tonight," he said, chewing on the apple piece finally and reaching to get a piece of melon.

"Oh okay." His mother was distracted in cutting up the egg-rolls and she passed over the drink bottles - orange drink for his brother, water for Niou, apple drink for his sister - and the holders for Niou to put them together. "I'll give you some money to buy lunch tomorrow."

Niou waited until Kazuki was watching the ad for some silly Sentai movie and switched the two fruit drinks around in the holders, smiling as he pushed them to the other side of the table next to their half finished lunches.

\---

It was getting easier to go to training after the first one and for the first time, Niou paused in front of the club room before he opened the door, much to the surprise of everyone who was in there.

"You're getting changed in here?"

Niou didn't say anything to the question but marched over to his and Yagyuu's lockers and the only hesitation was before he opened Yagyuu's, shoving his bag into it.

He started to undo his shirt and pulled it off and became very aware of the unnerving silence and everyone staring at him. "What? Are you all suddenly gay for me or something?" he said loudly, looking sideways at Marui who was biting his lip, trying not to laugh. "I'm not interested. Sorry Sanada."

It was so worth the ten laps to see the vice-captain turn an interesting puce colour.

He fixed up his hair once he had his shirt on and he turned around and closed the locker. "I want to play tennis." Niou zoomed in on Kirihara who was only half dressed and looking like he'd woken up ten minutes go. "Akaya, you're playing me."

The strangely empowered feeling continued through the day and he left just before maths - the thought of Asai-sensei's apoplectic fit gave him a good laugh as he made his way up to the roof. Niou didn't let himself stop and think as he pushed open the door to the rooftop but he made himself head over to the opposite corner to where he used to sit before.

It wasn't as nice a spot. More shaded and without the good view of the oval, but it was acceptable. He turned his back to the corner where he could almost hear him and Yagyuu laughing and talking together, sitting down in the shade and stared at the chainlink fence.

"Y'know, you make me feel like a bad best friend or something," Niou said out loud, kicking the fence and pursing his lips. "Or maybe you're the shit friend since you've ruined my favourite places at school for me."

He snorted and pulled out his phone, checking the time. "And now you'd probably say that I'm being delusional or something." Niou lowered his pitch slightly and gave the corner pole of the fence a severe look, tilting his head down as though he was looking over a pair of imaginary glasses. "Don't be stupid, Niou."

The laughter died out of his face and he sighed. "It'd be so fucking easy to just... jump or something. But you'd probably kill me for it." He could see Yagyuu's face already if they met up again so soon and he closed his eyes.

Niou heard the door open and for one beautiful, delusional minute, he thought it might be Yagyuu but it turned out to be Yanagi. He sighed and didn't bother to hide his disappointment as Yanagi approached him.

"What're you doing here, Data-man?" he asked, turning around and leaning against the fence, looking up at him.

"I'm doing my duty as a student council member. There was a 98 percent chance you'd be missing maths today."

Niou laughed sourly and patted the spot of concrete next to him. Yanagi surprisingly took the invitation and sat down and Niou fought the urge to flop down into his lap, clenching his fingers into the fence instead, turning away slightly.

"I didn't take you as a class skipper."

"I hope you continue with your delusions," Yanagi said, looking at him sideways.

They both fell silent and Niou twiddled his thumbs, slipping his feet out of his indoor shoes to crack his toes and wiggle them. And Yanagi's wince didn't go unnoticed either.

"So how're you doing, Masaharu?"

Niou shrugged. "I got beaten by Akaya today?" he said, "Still having trouble with Sanada... my right hand isn't strong enough." Niou stared down at his hands and flexed his fingers. "I'd do it with my left hand, but then the Illusion wouldn't work..."

"You know that wasn't what I was asking."

He grimaced and was silent for a long time. Thankfully Yanagi didn't seem to mind that much, or he was just too perceptive as to why Niou wasn't answering the question.

"You're the Data-man, you should already know," he said eventually, sitting up a little straighter. Niou bit his lip to stop himself from talking more about how he missed Yagyuu, how it was so much harder being around everyone because it made him feel even lonelier because no doubt Yanagi already knew all that.

Then again, he'd always had a bit more difficulty with emotions and reading Niou, but still.

Niou finally looked at Yanagi and leaned back a little at the very intense, open-eyed stare he was getting. It was probably his imagination, but Yanagi also seemed a little closer. "Are you going to hug me now?" he asked, frowning and looking awkward.

Yanagi's eyes closed again and he smiled. "If you want a hug, you should ask Seiichi."

"I think he tries to break my ribs, secretly," Niou said, laughing and pulling his knees up. "I don't really like them that much." There was a long pause. "Don't tell him I said that."

"I can't make any promises."

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Niou waved his hand and hunched over his knees, reaching down to touch his toes.

The topic of conversation switched to tennis, which was a much lighter topic and Niou found himself laughing as Yanagi drily recounted some of what had happened at training while he'd been away. And it wasn't until the bell rang and the rest of the team appeared on the rooftop for lunch looking surprised that he realised Yanagi had stayed the whole period with him.

\---

He did wonder how much more notice the rest of the team had gotten about them going over to Jackal's house that night when they were walking there after training.

Marui had a cake tin that had mysteriously appeared when they'd left the club house and Kirihara was talking about how he'd made some arrangements for tomorrow. Not that the last minute notice had really mattered since hie mother seemed to understand anyway.

Jackal's mother had prepared a ridiculously large dinner for them and they sat around in the living room, the television playing some silly anime that Kirihara had insisted on watching, eating off plates on their knees.

Niou stretched out a little more on the reclineable chair he'd managed to steal as Marui had gone up for second helpings of dinner.

"That reminds me of the first time I went to the arcade with Akaya." That was Jackal speaking and Niou closed his eyes, half listening in on the conversation. "I saw Yagyuu playing games there and nearly fell over."

"We didn't see Yagyuu-senpai there much after that, did we?" Kirihara joined in with the conversation, and Niou could hear Yukimura laughing around a mouthful of food. "Except with Niou-senpai."

Niou bit his lip and it was a long moment before he could talk and he stared at the ceiling instead of at the group when he did, concentrating on making sure his voice didn't shake. "I make Yagyuu do the claw machines for me." He still had a shelf full of random stuff he'd made Yagyuu spend far too much money getting for him. It probably would've been cheaper to just buy them. "And I beat him at racing games because he always flips his... his car..." 

He suddenly realised what he was saying and trailed off awkwardly. His chest tightened and he forced himself to swallow, closing his eyes again.

"He didn't like the standard blackboard cleaners." Sanada said, dutifully beginning to recounting his own tale as though he hadn't noticed and Niou was almost ridiculously thankful to him for it. Yagyuu and him had been in the same class for a lot of middle and high school. "He had a double sized one in his desk for when he had to do cleaning duty. And hand disinfectant because he thought the cleaning supplies were dirty."

Niou very much remembered Yagyuu always carrying one of those small hand sanitisers in his bag. He liked them a lot as well and used Yagyuu's a lot, mainly because he liked the funny tingly feeling they gave his hands.

"I gave Yagyuu a pot plant in third year to look after and he killed it in a week," Yukimura said after the laughter had subsided.

"I sabotaged it, sorry." Niou raised his hand and let it drop as Yukimura gave him a very severe look. "I knocked it off his desk when I was looking for condoms, okay?"

There was a very long pause and everyone stared at Niou before he realised what he'd said and he backtracked very quickly. "Not for _that_." He sat up straight and flapped his hands. "Okay, I've seen him naked outside of the showers but that was because of strip poker and we maybe practiced kissing a bit because he was getting lots of confessions and I didn't want some silly girl stealing his mouth's virginity. And I might've bitten his neck once but I'm pretty sure I was sleepwalking and he didn't seem to really care that much." Niou spoke very fast. "But I was just looking for condoms because I wanted to make water balloons out of them to throw at Sanada's shorts to make them see-through one training."

That didn't seem to really help at all, really and everyone's faces seemed a bit strange. He just sniffed and reclined back in his seat again, trying to ignore Yanagi beginning to mutter to himself about data and how he needed to write it down.

"That's... too much information, much," Marui said finally, breaking the long silence and Niou just pulled a face.

"Nothing less than what you and Jackal do, ey?" Niou turned his head and leered at Marui. He grinned and Marui pretended to get flustered. "Or what Sanada and Yukimura do, right _Genichirou_?"

Sanada choked on something and Niou nearly fell off the chair laughing as Yukimura pounded Sanada on the back.

It was so much better now that he'd started teasing people and the heavy feeling he'd had in his chest before was strangely gone. It was rather nice and he gave Marui a pointed glare before he slid out of the chair and picked up his plate to get seconds.

And yet, when he returned with another plate of food, it was to find that Yukimura had migrated from the couch to Niou's reclining chair.

After a dessert of the extremely chocolatey cake Marui had brought along and icecream, they set up the futons and Niou found himself smooshed into the corner. There was no real difficulty with them getting changed in front of each other, except when Niou started to strip off his clothes and sung dramatic music to go along with it. Though all it really earned him was a pillow throw at his head.

Oddly enough, it was Kirihara who noticed the pajamas Niou was wearing first which just made him start wondering how often Yagyuu had slept over with Kirihara.

"Those are Yagyuu-senpai's pajamas, aren't they?"

Niou fingered the mint and grey plaid material and shrugged as he hopped under the covers, "Who knows. Maybe he gave me a matching pair for my birthday or something, to stop me from stealing his." Though really, he could've worn any of a good 60 percent of his collection and probably had the same question asked.

It was really hard getting to sleep that night and it wasn't just because of the snores of everyone else or the lack of music - though that was probably partly it. He kept hearing the tales everyone had said about Yagyuu over and over and he could so easily see him doing everything that it was laughable.

Niou sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut, curling up into a little ball under the warm futon cover.

"Hey, Niou, you alright?" Jackal was lying next to him and patted him on the shoulder.

He could hear Sanada snoring further up the room and Kirihara was mumbling to himself in his sleep in between grinding his teeth together and he shrugged. "I'm alright." His voice came out a little thick and he sniffed again, feeling Jackal continue patting his shoulder.

"I'm pretty sure he thought you were the best thing that happened to him."

Niou swallowed and curled up a bit tighter under the covers. He didn't need to ask who Jackal was talking about. "Too bad he's too much of a fucking ponce to tell me that himself."

Sanada snorted loudly and there was some rustling of blankets as people moved around. Marui was breathing heavily now too.

"He probably didn't think he had to." Niou could hear the unsaid 'none of us did' and he just mumbled a reply into his pillow. "Don't hate him for it."

"I don't." That was the truth. He so so fucking badly wanted to hate Yagyuu for everything; for leaving him and making him sad and for cutting everything short, but he just couldn't. "He just pisses me off."

"That's alright then." Jackal gave him one last sturdy pat on the shoulder before withdrawing his hand and Niou rolled onto his back to glance sideways at Jackal and then at Kirihara who had moved over to latch onto Jackal in his sleep.

"Night Jackal," he said, "Thanks."

It was hard to see in the dark, but he had a feeling Jackal smiled at him in reply.

\---

"We need to start thinking about getting another member into the regulars," Yukimura said at lunch and Niou looked over at him before turning back to his lunch, stabbing at the meat until it crumbled.

"There aren't any tournaments coming up soon, Seiichi," Yanagi said and Niou was pretty sure he felt the Data master's gaze slide over to him. "We have plenty of time. It could be too soon."

"We need to look at combinations for next year," Yukimura said. "With Yagyuu gone we're one doubles combination short."

Niou's hand shook and he swallowed his mouthful of rice before putting the container lid on his lunch box and standing up. Their conversation about tennis stopped very suddenly.

"I'm going back to the classroom," he said to Marui and picked up his water bottle before very quickly walking back inside. He didn't go to the classroom though since he had a very good feeling Marui would follow behind him to talk to him and fuck, he really just didn't want to talk to the other boy right now.

Niou headed outside and passed other groups of students. It was weird being alone but it was fine and he ended up sitting on the edge of a garden, opening up the lunch box on his knees again to start poking at it.

He was out of view of the roof, he was pretty sure and he speared a tomato, chewing on it and staring at the group of girls giggling away a few paces away. A few mouthfuls later and Sanada appeared out of nowhere, sitting down awkwardly next to him and opening his own lunch.

Niou stared at him and shuffled away a little bit. "Why're you here?" And how had Sanada known he'd been here? The only explanation he could come up with was that he'd followed him almost immediately after he'd left the roof or had gone looking for him, which was just weird.

"I'm eating," Sanada said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He wanted to groan but he didn't, stuffing his mouth with more food to stop himself. "I can see that."

Sanada paused in between mouthfuls and looked around them. He wondered if there was anyone else coming or if Sanada had been stuck with the duty (volunteered?) for the duty of looking for him. "This is a good spot."

"Yeah? I think the roof is better. No one goes there but us." His mouth twitched and he swirled the remainder of his rice around with his chopsticks. "I think everyone's scared of you slapping them or something if they go up there without permission."

Sanada grunted. "Yukimura."

Niou laughed and stretched his legs out, nearly tripping over some passing person and he just smiled at them when they turned back to glare at him. "Yukimura doesn't hit people though. That's your job."

There was a long silence in which they both continued eating and Sanada wordlessly passed over some chocolate which looked like it had come from Marui. Mainly because he couldn't imagine the sour-puss vice-captain eating something so sweet.

"How's tennis been?"

Niou sobered up immediately and he nibbled at the edge of the chocolate, already feeling it melting a bit between his fingers. "If we don't count when you dragged me onto the court... yeah, it's been okay."

Sanada turned to look at him for a moment and Niou pulled a face. "Good." He suddenly stood up and Niou jumped a little at the unexpected movement. Sanada seemed to be working very hard to say something and Niou raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Talk to Renji if you want to play doubles still."

Somehow he got a feeling that wasn't what Sanada had originally been meaning to say to him, but he didn't say anything, waving at him half mockingly as he walked away, probably go to back to the roof to try and forget their awkward conversation had ever happened. Niou hummed and licked his chocolatey fingers. Yeah, maybe in a little bit he'd head back up to the roof as well.


End file.
